


for whatever we lose in a you and a me, it's always ourselves we find in the sea

by BeatnikFreak



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Hange is the best friend tbh, Levi learns to hope again, Lost Love, M/M, Memories, Mourning, Non Explicit, brief sex mention, eruri - Freeform, sad stuff, the sea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-14
Updated: 2017-08-14
Packaged: 2018-12-15 02:28:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11796534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeatnikFreak/pseuds/BeatnikFreak
Summary: They reach the sea and Levi remembers.





	for whatever we lose in a you and a me, it's always ourselves we find in the sea

**Author's Note:**

> I've developed a worrying obsession with this relationship over the last week and how else does one deal with it? 
> 
> Title by ee cummings.

_My God, Erwin_ , Levi thinks, _I am glad you didn't live to see this._

It's the first thought he has when they're done with Grisha Jaeger's books. It's a jarring first thought to have, with Erwin's body barely cold in a lonely house in Shinganshina. But it comes from a mercy he reserves for Erwin. The bottom has fallen out of the world he thought he knew, and it's far worse than Erwin could have predicted. Grisha's description of the wall by the coast where Eldians - their own kind - were pushed, transforming into the monsters he's hunted for the past five years... surely Erwin could never have dreamt of these horrors?

Erwin has a different approach to knowledge to Levi, he knows, but he himself can barely live with this. So why should Erwin have to?

It doesn't stop him, of course, desperately wishing for Erwin over the next years. The first night isn't the worst: it's hard to ascribe a ranking to months of returning from meetings with all nine of your entire regiment to a bed that's only filled with nightmares and solitude. And after the nightmares pass, come the dreams. The dreams so vivid he wakes up and reaches out a hand in the blue dark of the night to the other side of the bed. Worse is when he wakes up to the warmth of the bed as the sun rises, and for a moment the warm sheets are convincing enough to have him forgetting.

Levi plays a part in the restructuring of their world, but it feels hollow. Now they know the truth of the tiny spot they occupy in humanity, and of the horror in the space around them, it's hard to believe the same ideals of forging forward outside the walls. It's going to be another war, that much is clear to him.

But he has a promise to keep. He made a bargain with Erwin's life on behalf of humanity, and to keep his side of the deal he has to keep the fight. It isn't just about defeating the Beast Titan, even though his un-kept promise haunts him. No, it's about the goal with which he gave up Erwin's life for him. For humanity, that was the deal. And he can't devalue Erwin's death by doing anything but that.

So while Erwin might have lived his own lie, Levi lives his own. There isn't hope. There is a goal. Do everything possible to save them. Make Erwin's death - that gruesome plea bargain with the fates - worth something.

He catches himself promising Erwin it all the time, and it never hurts any less. But keeping a deal with a dead man when the stakes are a soul... _well_ , he hears Kenny saying, _what did you expect, kid?_

Levi becomes a slave to this memorial goal, and he does not die.

 

They reach the sea. Every kilometre away from the walls is a reminder of everything Erwin never knew, and it's a sucker punch at every hoofbeat. Everything he sees is tainted by the knowledge of what Erwin didn't know. He finds himself missing his presence every step of the journey, but he refuses to think of his lover's need to know the world. It all feels futile when they're riding to what could be their doom. It's all achievements, of course, but it rings flat and empty when he knows the truth. He wants to protect Erwin from that truth.

He craves Erwin's hand on his shoulder in the corridors of HQ, and to see his blade flashing to the left as he commands the charge. He craves his voice in his ear and booming across the plains, pure and clear and no less powerful when breathing broken sighs of love in his ear than when bellowing orders. He craves the small contented smile, the touch of their bodies, the boneless slump of his orgasm, the small gifts that were Levi's and Levi's alone.

He desperately wants Erwin back. But he doesn't want Erwin to see this new, grim world. He gave Erwin release when he let him die, and he can't go back on that. So he never allows the wistfulness, and accepts that his lover died without the sight of this world. He lives in the remembrance of times past, and in memory of a debt to the greatest man he's ever known, and will ever know.

But here is the sea, and it's more vast than anything he could possibly have comprehended. He stands facing the water, suddenly aware of the six foot absence at his side.

Hange comes up behind him, placing a hand gently on his shoulder. It's a gesture entirely too familiar, but from the wrong person.

"He wanted to see the sea," says Levi softly, staring out at the water, so wide and blue he can scarcely make sense of it. "He knew it existed."

Hange is silent, as they know he needs them to be. The hand stays on his shoulder, grounding him in a reality where he isn't alone. Further along the beach, he can see his squad running around in the water. They were still so young.

"It's... freedom, isn't it?" Levi continues, eyes fixed on the playing teenagers, splashing one another, momentarily forgetting their role in this gruesome world. "70% of the planet is covered in water."

"He was a great swimmer," offers Hange. "Fast and strong."

"Of course he was," Levi snorts. "Commander Handsome. Is there anything he couldn't do?"

"He couldn't let you go." Hange is quieter than they usually are.

Levi takes a breath that hurts. Hange squeezes his shoulder lightly, until the pain ebbs. The waves lap the shore.

"I never saw him swim. I can't, you know that?" Levi says, after a long moment.

Hange's silence is a question. "No need for it in the underground. I'd never seen a lake until the second expedition I went on."

The commander laughs slightly. "Erwin loved swimming. We trained together, and the old instructor insisted on throwing all the cadets into the river while one of the barges was coming. Had to swim out of the way before it hit us." Levi winces, despite himself. Hange laughs softly. "Erwin was first across the river, mainly because he could tell it was going to happen." They sigh. "Always could."

Levi places his hand over theirs for a moment. He knows they miss him too.

Hange seems to appreciate the sentiment, because they speak again. "On a scouting mission, we found a woodland stream and he insisted we get in and swim." They laugh, properly this time. "Bloody freezing, but it was worth it. We all stank."

"You always stink," Levi replies, and he can just tell they're grinning, and it buoys him a little.

"Erwin was the first in, and it was the first time in months we'd seen him loosen up. He'd been made squad leader," they explain, and Levi nods, knowing only too well the particular set of Erwin's shoulders when he was working. "But that day, in the middle of a forest - back before we lost Wall Maria - he looked like the hopeful kid he'd been when he joined the cadets. He leapt off some rocks - Mike damn near had a heart attack - and the look on his face..." Hange trails off.

"Softer, somehow," Levi finishes for her. "The tension leaving him lighter. Golden, somehow," he says, remembering shared moments that he almost can't bear to think over.

Hange's fingers tighten on his shoulder. "Golden." They pause, and then start talking again, as if they can feel Levi's hunger to hear more, to imagine and live in this memory with them. "I remember seeing him floating on his back under the waterfall, in the peaceful water behind the splash, just looking up at the rocks. The smallest smile on his face." Hange sniffs, just once. "I've never forgotten it, the stillness, while the rest of us were swimming and splashing about. Serenity."

Levi imagines it. While most have never seen Erwin at peace - those that had were mostly dead now - he knows it. The peace of Erwin asleep at his side on the rare nights he didn't dream, solid and silent, moonlight playing on lilac eyelids, hair almost silver in the monochrome night. The stillness of the morning in between sleep and wakefulness, with the sun just touching their skin, reaching for one another just to be close.

And the moment just after sex. Erwin's eyes blown wide for a second, gazing at Levi like he was the only thing on the earth, in a second of perfect stillness in one another's arms.

"I wish I could have seen him swim," he says in a flat tone and they both know they're talking about so much more than that.

"God, I know."

They stand there together for a very long time, leaning slightly into one another.

 

There's a mood of hope that permeates the camp that evening as the sun sets. Eren's brain is working a mile per minute in the wrong direction, as usual, Levi can tell, and god knows what Armin's thinking about in that mind of his, but even they are joining in with the jokes and cheer. He can see that here, on the edge of the world they hadn't known existed until three years ago, it's easy to feel hopeful.

Levi hasn't felt hopeful since before Erwin died. He has fought hard and long for that promise, but he doesn't let himself hope. He doesn't go in the sea. He stays quiet, a dark figure among firelit, daring smiles.

The camp is still, the only sound the sea on the sand and the soft susurration of breathing in tents. But the sea seems to be creeping into his mind, pushing up against his peace.

Without knowing why, he finds himself getting out of his sleeping bag. He walks down to the shore in his trousers and boots, shirt barely buttoned. The white fabric flaps in the breeze as he makes his way down to the water's edge.

The water laps at the edge of his boots. He watches it for a very long time, mind entirely the wash of salt against his feet that he can't quite feel through the stiff leather. He's struck with the need to feel it, feel the sand crunching under his toes.

He pulls off his boots, and then touches his feet to the surf. He finds himself closing his eyes, tipping his chin up like he would when Erwin's fingers and mouth would lightly traverse his skin, silently begging.

The water is cold again his bare feet, and it sends a wave of contentment through him, followed by need. He pulls his shirt over his head faster than he has since Erwin died, shucking his trousers into the sand.

Naked, he walks gingerly into the water, until he's waist deep. It feels like completion. Like sex with Erwin had, both balm and invigoration. He needs more, needs to let go, needs to just exist for a moment with nothing else.

So he lets himself float. It's terrifying, at first, to let himself slip into the water backwards. He splashes frantically for a moment, trying to regain his balance. Then he finds his centre, Erwin's voice in his head.

_Follow me._

So Levi follows him, follows him into an imagined space of water and peace and silence but for the waves. Holding tight to that golden tranquility he balances himself, lying on his back and looking up at the stars. It's the first time he's seen something beautiful since Erwin died. 

He lies in the water, and allows his mind to go blank. The water ebbs and flows around him, but he allows it to take him, up and down like breathing. 

Unbidden, he thinks of Erwin. He thinks of every moment of peace. Lying underneath the crescent moon, he lets himself wonder where Erwin is now, and if he's watching. Somehow, in this silent sea, he can believe it. The water is salty enough to hold him up, and he goes limp, limbs free as his mind wanders through memories in a way he hasn't been able to in years.

He remembers waking after Erwin, for once, opening his eyes to find his love watching him, gently tracing the patterns the light made across his skin, lips wide in a gentle smile, eyes low lidded and adoring. That morning had been outside of time, the golden dawn holding them like dust motes in the air, gently spinning in on another's orbit and never coming to earth.

_What are you grinning about? he asks, not really annoyed._

_This, says Erwin, still smiling softly. This moment._

_If the regiment knew how sappy their commander was, you'd have a harder time leading them into battle._

_But Erwin's smile is unbroken, and Levi finds himself curling into it, reaching out a hand to his lover's pale arm, tracing the curve of the bicep._

_It is strangely peaceful, he admits, watching his fingers tip tap along the strong muscle._

_You know why? asks Erwin, and the smile is palpable in his voice. Levi looks up, and it's like seeing the sun._

_Because it's hard to not hope when I wake and the first thing I know is you in my arms._

He doesn't know what's coming. He doesn't know how they're going to fight whatever is coming. With his back to the shore, all he can see is the uncertain horizon.

But he's reminded of Erwin again. This is another step forward. And as little as that might be, floating in an ocean he never expected to see, facing the future, it feels like something.

 _God, Erwin_ , he thinks, at last. _I wish you'd seen this._

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written, much less posted fic, in nearly four years. Blame a really tough undergrad degree and an even tougher masters. But now this comes to you, sponsored by my partner getting me into AOT and by extreme dissertation stress. 
> 
> I cried the whole way through writing this on a train back from a wedding. So I hope you enjoyed it!


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